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| Beach at Bitter Guana |
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| Connie procuring conch shells at Staniel Cay |
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| Connie & Philip on Staniel Cay |
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| Ray |
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| Last day of lobster season |
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| View at anchor |
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| Krogenites picnicking along Pipe Creek |
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| Steven Spielberg's new toy |
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| Typical sunset |
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| Water patterns in sand at Bitter Guana |
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March 23
This was one of those magical days when the stars align and our little corner of the world was at peace.
Despite some morning swells (Hobie was seasick)the seas were all but calm as we crossed 85 miles in the ocean from Rodriguez Key, south of Key Largo, Fla., through Cat and Guns Cays to enter the Bahamas. Other than the infrequent container ship, collier or mega-yacht, this part of the ocean belonged to Epilogue and Compass Rose.
Coming from the snowy north, one might first notice the warm temperatures. Since we had been in Florida for more than two months, the surreal palette of colors stood out. Marathon’s waters were a cloudy, pale seaglass-green. The Gulf Stream was a vivid indigo blue -- almost purple -- at depths of more than 600 feet. Once inside the shallow waters of the Bahama Bank, the water was ice-clear turquoise and we could see everything on the bottom.
After raising a sunny yellow quarantine flag (we’ll check in with Bahamian Customs in Fresh Creek on Friday), we motored along with flying fish zipping across the bow and Man of Wars bobbing on either side of us, their translucent, bottle-shaped bodies shimmering in the royal blue waters.
Compass Rose and Epilogue anchored for the night in 11 feet of aqua waters in the Bank. I donned a wet suit and jumped in the 72 degree water -- no fish and only an occasional shell. There were two starfish, though, near the boat and one Giant Starfish, a luncheon plate-sized knobby brown starfish with a small circle in its epicenter. Philip had jumped in the day before to make sure we hadn’t picked up crab pot parts. John found mega feet of line wrapped around his prop.
We celebrated our arrival to the Bahamas with margaritas and watched a magnificent sunset, capped off with seeing the infamous green flash! It’s really more like a smallish green orb that lasts several seconds than a flash like you might expect from a camera.
As the sun set, all we could see from where we stood were 360 degrees of horizon and heard...nothing... but the soft lapping of a near-quiet sea. After dinner we climbed back up to the flybridge to stargaze. The constellations were so bright against their inky background that it seemed that we could almost reach up and pluck one from the heavens.
At about 3 a.m., all hell broke loose. The wind picked up in one direction and the current held us in another. We rocked and rolled. There were unidentifiable thuds and squeaks and groans and the anchor chain rattled like it was being dragged by a ghost.
March 24
The sleepy-eyed captains and mates on Epilogue and Compass Rose headed east with the wind in the morning, and while still choppy, the swells weren’t bad. By afternoon, it was a nice ride as we passed by sugar-colored beaches and over the black and blue ocean floor more than 3,000 feet under our bow. You don’t want to drop your watch overboard here.
We anchored at Morgan’s Bluff, a shallow cove with three sailboats already at anchor. We had a great dinner on Compass Rose and watched as a giant water tanker deftly (and noisily) lined up to the seawall to fill up with precious cargo to distribute throughout the islands.
March 25
Now this is the way crossing an ocean should be! It was as smooth as proverbial glass, so calm that I went below and baked a cake. It was a perfect trip from Morgan’s Bluff to Fresh Creek in the middle Andros.
We’re at the sparsely populated Lighthouse marina at Fresh Creek, with Calabash Bay up the road. We lowered the yellow quarantine flag and raised the Bahamian flag after two ship-shape Customs officers came to the boat, asked a million questions and cleared us. When Philip told one of them that he hadn’t been here since the ‘80s, one gendarme said with a smile, “You do know it’s against the law not to have come back more often?”
In typical tourist fashion, as soon as they left I rummaged through a pile of discarded large conch shells and picked out two pink beauties to take home as souvenirs.
Pam and John and Philip and I walked down the dirt road outside the marina to the batik factory that they had visited two years earlier. A handful of workers graciously allowed us to come into the long, open sheds where the fabric is dyed. Scores of mostly dinner plate-sized stamps made out of natural sponge in the shape of everything from starfish to skull and crossbones and seahorses to Christmas stockings hung on the wall. The stamps are waxed and the part that isn’t waxed is dyed, leaving the imprint, or maybe it’s the other way around. Pam is the expert and in her earlier visit bought material which her mother-in-law (now 90)made into an beautiful quilt.
In an adjoining shed, two women were at sewing machines, one making tablecloths from bright green batik and the other putting tags on aprons. We went to the small store (the only building that was air conditioned) and bought a shirt and blouse.
We walked along the road toward town -- like Merry Hill there really is no “town,” per se. Pam and John had remembered meeting an elderly woman who made baskets and asked a couple selling homemade bread at a roadside table about her. She had since died, but the young woman at the table -- Merkel Neely -- everyone calls her Kelly -- also makes baskets as well as bread and sweets. She jumped into her van and dashed back to her home and returned with several baskets. Her husband said they use silverleaf, a kind of bush found in the marshes, whack it down and strip its reeds to thread with an icepick to make the baskets (Pam and I each bought one). Kelly, 35, is the artisan; her husband the salesman, marketer and banker. The couple has five boys ranging in age from 4 to 17 and they said business had been very slow.
We continued our walk -- it was 89 degrees so we it wasn’t a long hike. Observations: there are no trash cans to be seen and the bushes along the two-lane road are home to enough trash to fill multiple trucks. We saw numerous really pretty young women with high cheekbones and smooth skin the color of milk chocolate. Many of the men seemed unusually tall and, of course, the distinct clipped accent of the residents here is unmistakenly Bahamian. Welcome to the Bahamas, mon!
While Pam and John worked on holding tank issues, Philip and I walked up to Christine’s for dinner of fried conch and fried lobster (sic) with rice and peas and plantains. We visited with dining Seabee reservists working at the Navy facility here.
Today we’re off to the Exumas.
March 27-March 29
Most of us live on or not far from the water and marvel at its changes. What makes the Bahamas so special, or at least here in the Exumas, are the vivid contrasts. This is the stuff dreams are made of. And postcards and travel brochures.
Deeper waters are cornflower, royal, indigo or inky blues. Shallower depths are clean, clear and countless shades of aqua and turquoise that turn to milky white the skinnier the water gets. Thin spots that are a smudgy gray are over rocks or grass. It’s the same shade of charcoal I usually associate with cloud cover, but here without the clouds.
But mostly the waters are a brilliantly bright greenish-blue. Picture jewelry: sparkling sapphires, turquoise, diamonds and opalescent pearls. The sea ranges from the iridescent blue of tropical fish to the pale green of the first spring leaves on a willow tree; from the color of freshly poured cream to icy vodka. And that’s just the water. The Wedgwood-to-baby blue blanket sky melds into the ocean, creating a tropical sky-to-sea tapestry.
It had been another good crossing from Fresh Creek some forty five miles across the Tongue of the Ocean to Warderick Wells Cay. Epilogue and Compass Rose are on mooring balls in Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park in Warderick Wells. The 176-square mile bit of paradise was created by the Bahamian Parliament in 1958. The park is 22 miles long and extends four nautical miles among 15-plus cays.
We’re with eight or so other boats in the North Mooring Field. Two foot-long yellowtails greet us off the stern. This is a “no take” area -- one can’t fish, take shells “nothing living or dead may be removed from the park,” according to its edicts, so these fish know they won’t be on our grill tonight.
We had arrived just in time for the weekly Saturday night happy hour under the tiki hut adjacent to the park office. There were some two dozen of us with hailing ports from Montreal to Montana and accents from French to Polish. Pam’s chicken curry dip was the hit of the party, as was a seviche made with freshly caught mahi caught that morning off of the yacht Hooters. A chef (one of a crew of four) on Hooters had made the dish for a couple from Manhattan with their two teenagers. He, a non-boater and investment banker, said he had “rented” the boat that’s chartered by the infamous restaurant chain for a family vacation. His wife was keen on the Bahamas; he had envisioned a touristy Atlantis and was pleasantly surprised by the natural beauty of these scattered islands that cruise ships and cars can’t reach.
On Sunday, Pam and John and Philip and I hiked through moonscape-like rocks to Hutia Hill. We had a picnic lunch on the breezy side of the park office porch where petite yellow bananquit birds landed with no coaxing on our open hands for a snack. We chatted on the porch with Mary and Lee Pillsbury from Fort Lauderdale. They were here on their 120-plus foot yacht, Double Eagle. They own or manage hundreds of Marriotts, Hyatts and other hotels in the 20,000-employe Interstate Hotel company the couple started in 1989. One of their properties is the Marriott in Annapolis, where they had lived. The couple, who learned to fly at the age of 50 (and now are in their 70s or so) are both qualified to fly jets.
That evening we had drinks and Krogen pasta on Compass Rose, along with Walter and Lynn on their sailboat, Iolar, from Mystic, Conn.
On Monday the six of us anchored out near one of the channels in our dinghys and went snorkeling. On the way, Philip saw a BIG fish jump in the air, no doubt Bubba, the resident four-foot barracuda. The water was lumpy on top and silky below with a living patchwork of sea, tube, brain and staghorn coral; sergeant majors, blue chromis, spadefish, angelfish, yellowtails, hogfish and other fish that make up the encyclopedia of the deep. Topping off our undersea entertainment were cat-sized protected spiny lobsters that ambled along the bottom, ambivalent to the approaching end of lobstering season. And then there was the spotted eagle ray. With its 5-7 foot wing span, it wound its way through the water in gentle ballet-like moves, with two foot-long fish getting a free ride beneath its belly.
That afternoon we hiked to Boo Boo Hill. A shipwreck “a long time ago” claimed all lives aboard and according to legend their ghosts are heard (boo) at night atop the hill. We added our piece of wood to a cairn-like pile that boaters leave to ward off evil spirits atop the hill. John brought the wood and drew in our names and the date; Philip found his Dremel tool and etched them in. There were no doubt a couple of hundreds pieces of driftwood, painted wood, branches - anything natural that one could leave with a boat and boaters name. These dated only to 2007 and we wondered where the earlier ones are.
From Boo Boo Hill, it was a short walk to the blow holes. In a storm the sea shoot geysers through the various sized holes in the rocks. On sunny days like this one, there was plenty of wind that shot through the openings like the strong puff of air from a dentist’s tool.
In the evening, Compass Rose, Epilogue, and Iolar gathered for a potluck supper under the tiki hut, along with Athea and Rich on Peace, (from Maine and the Bahamas); Alex and Fawn on Twilite (from Halifax, Nova Scotia) (and their cute little dog, Bob, newly rescued by Florida officials from purported drug dealers;)and Bahamian park ranger Lesley, who was celebrating his 30th anniversary in the Bahamian Marines, the equivalent to our Coast Guard. As with Saturday night’s Happy Hour, the hutia scurried about in the bushes as close as they could get to the picnic tables. Hutia (pronounced who-tee’-a)look just like big rats, but apparently they’re a lot friendlier.
Tuesday we headed toward Staniel Cay, knowing that we’ll find yet another slice of Bahamas heaven.
Photos, below, are the color of the water and one of Exuma park.
Next blog entry:
The swimming pigs at Staniel Cay!
